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Hot…And Lots of Dry

September 6, 2013 5:15 PMBy Jeff Ray

Over the period from 1980-2010, the average high at the DFW for this date is 92°. So far this month the average high at DFW has been closer to 100°. Of the last 16 days only one has seen a below-normal high the rainy Monday at the start of the work week when it only reached 90 degrees:

So far the official high at DFW is a triple-digit number, the 28th time of the year that’s happened at the airport. The record for this date was set last year. This puts 2013 has 20th on the list of years with the most 100° days. Two years ago we had a record 71 of them.

There’s been a smattering of pop-up afternoon storms today, most of the activity has been north and west of the metro area. This activity will die out as the sun goes down. For Friday Night Football we’ll include a (generous) 10% chance of storms but don’t expect the concession stands to be selling much hot coffee:

The weekend looks the same. Hot and very small storm chances (on Saturday, Sunday looks dry):

All this dry weather has only lowered the water supply. Here are lake levels for north Texas:

A little bit of rain fell around Lake Bridgeport, much needed since the lake is almost 20 feet below normal capacity. It was low this time last year. It’s even lower now:

Because of the zebra mussel infestation north Texas is currently not getting water from the largest lake in our area, Lake Texoma (here is CBS11 reporter Bud Gillett’s story on this). That is scheduled to change at the end of the year as the new Wylie treatment plant comes on line. The three biggest reservors behind Texoma in this area are Richland Chambers (11.7% of the supply), Tawakoni (9.4%) and Ray Roberts (8.6%). Here is how they are trending over the last year:

One good thing you can say about the dry weather this fall is that Ragweed counts have been low for the most part. A couple of days past the rain last Monday they spiked but as of today dropped again to more tolerable levels:

Not much relief in sight, the next seven days look hot and dry. The long-range models show above-normal temperatures for the next couple of weeks:

Jeff joined CBS 11 and TXA 21 in December 2010. He came to North Texas from Nashville, where he spent the past 11 years, most recently as the morning meteorologist at WKRN-TV. His career has also taken him to Kansas City, Mo., where he was the seni...